FAQs

Academy

The Ivors Academy of Music Creators is the trading name of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA). We are the independent trade body for songwriters and composers in the UK.

The Ivors Academy office is at The Ministry, 79 Borough Road, London SE1 1DN.

Membership

Membership of The Ivors Academy is exclusively for music creators. To be eligible for membership, you must be a member of PRS for Music or another recognised music collecting society, or have comparable grand rights income or appropriate qualifications as deemed by our Board from time to time.

Standard Membership is for songwriters and composers who are standard members (previously called provisional members) of PRS for Music or another PRO. Whether established in your career or just beginning, if you are ambitious about developing your craft and passionate about the rights of music creators, join us.

Academy Membership is for songwriters and composers who are recognised by their peers as exceptionally talented, and who have experienced consistent commercial success over at least three years. To be eligible for Academy Membership you must be a voting member (previously called full or associate membership) of PRS for Music or another PRO.

Standard Membership costs £92 per year (or £96 per year if you choose to pay monthly, at £8 per month). Academy Membership costs £166 per year (or £168 per year if you choose to pay monthly, at £14 per month). For those aged 24 or younger, we have an Under 25 discounted Standard Membership, costing £50 per year.

If there is a financial barrier preventing you from joining The Ivors Academy, please contact the membership team at membership@ivorsacademy.com

Your membership starts from the date we receive your first payment contribution. If you choose to pay your membership by PayPal, then we will receive your payment immediately, and you will receive a welcome email with your membership number then.

If you choose to pay by Direct Debit, it will be a while longer before we receive your payment, and before your membership becomes active. If you join us before the 16th of a given month, your first payment will be collected on the 28th of that month, when you will become an active member. If you join after the 16th of the month, your first payment won’t be collected until the 28th of the following month, and so your membership will not officially begin until then.

If you have recently joined us and chose to pay by Direct Debit, and would like to access membership services and member events before your membership becomes active, please contact memberservices@ivorsacademy.com

Please note that the insurance offered as part of our membership package cannot be used before your membership is live and the first payment has been received.

Membership, whether Standard or Academy, needs to be renewed annually.

Awards

The Ivors are our annual awards celebrating excellence in songwriting and screen composition. Founded in 1956, they are named in honour of Ivor Novello, Britain’s most successful and distinguished theatrical composer at the time, and represent the pinnacle of musical achievement and peer recognition in the music industry.

Central to what makes them so special, The Ivors are a peer-recognition award at heart. Our nominated entry award categories are judged by panels of music creators, with the exception of PRS for Music Most Performed Work which is a statistical category based on data held by the award’s title sponsor, PRS for Music. Our gift of the Academy awards are chosen by The Ivors Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is exclusively populated by music creators.

The Ivors Composer Awards are our annual awards celebrating the art of composition, recognising the creative talent of composers and sound artists, and bringing their music to a wider audience. They are unique in making contemporary music, jazz and sonic art the focus of their annual celebration. Founded in 2003, The Ivors Composer Awards were known as the British Composer Awards until 2019.

Central to what makes them so special, The Ivors Composer Awards are a peer-recognition award at heart. Our nominated entry award categories are judged by panels of music creators and practitioners. Our gift of the Academy awards are chosen by The Ivors Composer Awards Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is exclusively populated by composers.

The Rising Star Award with Apple Music is a new category introduced to The Ivors 2020. The Rising Star Award with Apple Music will honour young British or Irish songwriting and composing talent who demonstrate exceptional potential and ambition. In addition to receiving an Ivor Novello Award at the awards ceremony, the winner will also receive ongoing support and mentorship from the Apple Music team.

Campaigning

Events

The Gold Badge was created by BASCA in 1974. It acknowledges a unique contribution to the UK music industry; individuals who inspire or support creativity in all its musical forms. Because success is rarely a solo achievement; we are often inspired by those who came before us, championed by broadcasters or commissioners, supported by managers, publishers or producers.

Academy Members of The Ivors Academy can nominate recipients for recognition. An Ivors Academy Gold Badge recognises outstanding individuals who have supported and inspired the UK songwriting and composing community.

Contact

On our Contact Us page, you’ll find all the information to contact The Ivors Academy by phone, email or post.

Copydan

Copydan Writing is a collective management organisation in Denmark which collects revenues for the reproduction (photocopying) of text and sheet music from Danish educational and religious establishments. As this right does not exist in UK law, the UK collection societies are unable to distribute this income. BASCA, trading as The Ivors Academy, is not a collection society but is acting as an agent for Copydan Writing in this territory.

Royalties are due to songwriters and composers whose works have been reproduced in Denmark by educational and religious establishments since 2015. Copydan supply the Academy with this information alongside the funds based on their own methods of measuring and allocating royalties to rightsholders.

These rightsholders may or may not be members of The Ivors Academy, there is absolutely no discrimination in our efforts to contact rightsholders based on membership of The Ivors Academy.

If you are a member of The Ivors Academy and are due any Copydan royalties, you will have heard from us. However, this is an ongoing agreement with Copydan, so if you have not earned any royalties thus far, you may in the future if your work is included in, for example, song books used in Danish schools. We will contact you regarding Copydan royalties as they come in annually.

If you are not a member of The Ivors Academy, and have not heard from us, but believe you may be due royalties from Copydan for reproduction of your work as text/sheet music in Denmark in educational and religious establishments over the last five years, please get in touch at copydan@ivorsacademy.com

The Ivors Academy applies an administration fee to all the Copydan royalties payments it makes to rightsholders. For rightsholders who are not members of The Ivors Academy, this administration fee is 10%. For rightsholders who are members of The Ivors Academy, this administration fee is reduced to 8%.

The Ivors Academy charges an administration fee to cover its own expenses in distributing the funds – this includes the resource required to identify rightsholders who are due funds, contact them and ensure we have all required financial information.

Alongside the funds, Copydan provides The Ivors Academy with a breakdown of royalties due to rightsholders; sometimes this information specifies for which work/s, sometimes only the rightsholder. We cross-reference this information against various databases – primarily our own membership database and PRS for Music’s database – as well as wider desk research if required to identify rightsholders, contact them and confirm the correct bank account information to send funds to. We do this regularly throughout the year so that if there are any rightsholders we were unable to contact initially, we have subsequent effort and attempts to contact them and ensure their royalties are received.

It is the Academy’s responsibility to take all reasonable endeavours to contact the rightsholders who are due royalties payments in order to ensure their royalties are paid to them. We report details of these efforts back to Copydan; if after three years we are unable to contact the recipients then funds due to them become non-distributable revenue which the Academy is only entitled to then use on activity which will serve the general best interest of songwriters and composers in the UK.

Because the agreement we have entered into with Copydan is new and unprecedented, royalties for years prior to 2014 which were due to UK rightsholders have been absorbed by Copydan into its own funds which are invested in activity to serve the general best interest of music creators in Denmark.

In March 2019, Copydan transferred funds to The Ivors Academy for royalties due from the years 2015 through to 2018. The Ivors Academy will begin distributing these funds to rightsholders in June 2019.

Our first payment date will be Monday 24th June 2019. Provided we have all of your bank and tax residency information at least 5 days prior to this, your royalties payment will be made on this date. If we do not have all of your information by this time, your royalties will be paid on one the next soonest payment date at least 5 working days clear from when we receive all your information. These scheduled dates are: Monday 23rd September 2019; Monday 6th January 2020; Monday 23rd March 2020.

Looking ahead, Copydan will transfer funds to The Ivors Academy no later than 30th April in the year following the year of collection. For example, Copydan will transfer funds for 2019 royalties payments to The Ivors Academy by 30th April 2020. We will then distribute these funds from May 2020, with quarterly payment dates similar to those for the 2019-20 distribution year.

Depending on how you manage your own accounting and tax returns, you may need to raise an invoice to account for the income you’ve received for your Copydan royalties. In the first instance, please contact your accountant for advice on this if you have one.

If you need to raise an invoice for VAT purposes, please raise this with zero-rated VAT to:

Copydan Writing, Bryggervangen 8, 2.sal, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

Danish VAT number: DK 18463504

You must include the following statement: “This supply is subject to the reverse charge.”

Send this invoice to copydan@ivorsacademy.com or by post to The Ivors Academy, The Ministry, 79 Borough Road, London SE1 1DN. Do not send your invoice directly to Copydan.